Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!...So what is today about?

Dad
will be sharing this devotional today as we are gathered together with family
and friends for this Thanksgiving holiday, taking the time to ponder on why we
are gathering and how much we have to be thankful for.

I hope you are blessed by it
and Happy Thanksgiving!

What is the holiday, Thanksgiving to you?

Family tradition of fellowship,
food and football?A long weekend with
no school?

What is it truly?

William Bradford said “"All
ye Pilgrims with your wives and little ones, do gather at the Meeting House, on
the hill… there to listen to the pastor, and render Thanksgiving to the
Almighty God for all His blessings."

It is an American, Christian
tradition instituted in the year 1623 by the English Puritan Separatists we
know as “The Pilgrims”.

Who were the Pilgrims
and where did they come from:

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Puritan-leaning
religious opinions were generally tolerated, but when King James came to power
in 1604 the Church of England again began to root out, prosecute, and jail those
who openly believed the Church needed to be purified of its false ceremonies,
non-Scriptural teachings, and superstitious rituals. Across England,
small groups began to separate themselves from their persecuting Churches, to
form their own secret congregations. One such group was centered not too
far from Sherwood Forest, in a small village in
Nottinghamshire named Scrooby. Led by Richard Clyfton, John Robinson, and
William Brewster, by 1606 the group was secretly holding meetings in Scrooby
Manor, where Brewster was employed as the postmaster. It was not long,
however, before the authorities were onto them. The group made the
decision to flee England
to Holland, where they had heard
they could practice their religion without the threat of jail, punishments, and
fines. After several failed attempts in 1607, they all managed to make it
to Amsterdam in 1608, and later
migrated en masse to Leiden, Holland
in early 1609.

Why did the Pilgrims
leave Holland?

Reasons for departure are suggested by Bradford, when he
notes the "discouragements" of the hard life they had in the
Netherlands, and the hope of attracting others by finding "a better, and
easier place of living"; the "children" of the group being
"drawn away by evil examples into extravagance and dangerous
courses"; the "great hope, for the propagating and advancing the
gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world."

History / derivatives of the holiday:

Henry Laurens on Thanksgiving

This is the origin of our
annual Thanksgiving Day celebration.

Congress of the United States has proclaimed National Days

of Thanksgiving to Almighty
God many times throughout the

following years. On November 1, 1777, by order of Congress,

the first National
Thanksgiving Proclamation was proclaimed,

and signed by Henry
Laurens, President of Continental

Congress. The third
Thursday of December, 1777 was thus

officially set aside:

"…for solemn
thanksgiving and praise. That with

one heart and one voice the
good people may

express the grateful
feelings of their hearts, and

consecrate themselves to
the service of their

Divine Benefactor;… and
their humble and

earnest supplication that
it may please God,

through the merits of Jesus
Christ, mercifully to

forgive and blot them (their
manifold sins) out of

remembrance… That it may
please Him… to take

schools and seminaries of
education, so necessary

for cultivating the
principles of true liberty, virtue

and piety under His
nurturing hand, and to prosper

the means of religion for
the promotion and

enlargement of that kingdom
which consisteth of

'righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost'…"

George
Washington on Thanksgiving

On January 1,
1795, our first

United States President, George Washington,

wrote his famed National Thanksgiving

Proclamation, in which he says that it is…

"…our duty as a people, with devout reverence
and

affectionate gratitude, to acknowledge our many

and great obligations to Almighty God, and to

implore Him to continue is… our duty as a people,

with devout reverence and affectionate

gratitude, to acknowledge our many and great

obligations to Almighty God, and to implore Him

to continue and confirm the blessings we

experienced…"

Thursday, the 19th day of February, 1795 was thus set

aside by George Washington as a National Day of

Thanksgiving.

Abraham Lincoln on Thanksgiving

On October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, by Act of

Congress, an annual
National Day of Thanksgiving "on the last Thursday of November, as a day
of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the
heavens." In this Thanksgiving proclamation, our 16th President
says that it is…

"…announced in the
Holy Scriptures and proven by

all history, that those
nations are blessed whose

God is the Lord… But we
have forgotten God.

We have forgotten the
gracious hand which

preserved us in peace and
multiplied and

enriched and strengthened
us, and we have

vainly imagined, by the
deceitfulness of our

hearts, that all these
blessings were produced

by some superior wisdom and
virtue of our

own… It has seemed to me
fit and proper that

God should be solemnly,
reverently and gratefully

acknowledged, as with one
heart and one voice,

by the whole American
people…"

Franklin D. Roosevelt on Thanksgiving

On December 26, 1941, PresidentFranklin D. Rooseveltsigned a joint resolution of Congress
changing the national Thanksgiving Day from the last Thursday in November to
the fourth Thursday. Two years earlier, Roosevelt had
used apresidential
proclamationto try to
achieve this change, reasoning that earlier celebration of the holiday would
give the country an economic boost.

Why were the Pilgrims thankful?

They had ability to practice
religious freedom

God’s provisional blessings

God Commands our
thankfulness:

Psalms 100:4Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and
into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his
name.KJV

Col. 3:15And let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.ESV

There are some 95 verses in the
Bible that exhort us to “give thanks” to God.